The pitch might have been soggy, but the St. Albert’s second division women’s team was anything but all wet.
The team came as close as they have all season to winning, dropping a narrow 10-7 decision to the Pirates in Edmonton Rugby Union second division action Saturday afternoon at Leading Edge Field, which was soaked thanks to steady rain through Friday and Saturday morning.
Eight-man Sabrina Kelly said it was a close contest, and the team had a lot of positives to take away.
“We’re proving it every game. This was such a close score, and it would have been nice to take the win away, but you can’t win them all, I guess,” she said.
This was the St. Albert squad’s second game in the second division season, losing their first 36-17 to the Druids. Prior to that, the women played in a classification round, going 0-7 and being outscored 432-36.
Kelly said the team has improved consistently since the spring and the first win of the season is so close, they can taste it.
“We know that we can do it,” she said. “We’re that close.”
Playing in the second division is a far cry from the past couple of years when the team played in the women’s premier division and even won a provincial championship.
Kelly said it has been a struggle getting enough players out for games, but when the team does, it can put together a solid effort.
“There’s a lot of young girls on the team — our average age is maybe 20,” she said. “We’re still learning and trying to build these girls up.”
The Pirates struck first on Saturday as winger Jenn Bird grabbed the ball in the 12th minute and took it out wide to the right side, just out of the reach of St. Albert’s defenders, scoring the game’s first try. The convert attempt was no good.
St. Albert answered back in the 26th minute, as Kelly did most of the work, running the ball deep into Pirates’ territory before being stopped just before the goal line. Prop Janelle Romanchuck was there to pick up the pieces, scooping up the ball and diving into the try area.
“It takes a team to score a try,” Kelly said. “There was good passing, good communication. They said, ‘Go down and we’ll take it forward,’ because there was no way I could get through there. It was a team effort on that one.”
Kaitlin Davis’s convert attempt was successful, giving St. Albert a 7-5 lead.
However, just before the halftime whistle, the wet conditions bit St. Albert as Kaleigh Herald mishandled a kick, allowing the Pirates to scoop up the ball and run it in. The score was 10-7 after the convert attempt fell short.
Kelly said the waterlogged pitch presented its fair share of challenges.
“There were probably more scrums in this game than there were in the last two we played,” she said. “But it was kind of fun. You could slide with the ball and play more of a forward game.”
In the second half, neither team could put any points on the scoreboard, but St. Albert staved off stretches of sustained pressure with their backs against their own goal line.
Kelly said she was proud of the stand they took.
“We couldn’t get our offence going but we had an awesome defence, especially in the last half,” she said.
“We’re working our way through,” she added. “We’re talking more — pull left or pull right and do it as a team.”
In their meeting during the spring classification round, the Pirates beat St. Albert 17-12.
The team will have to regroup quickly as they host the Grande Prairie Sirens on Saturday, July 16, at 2 p.m. at Leading Edge Field.
